One way to offer collaboration is through intentional intergenerational discipleship and guidance — mentoring in a way that is less like facilitation and more like how family members interact with one another. As Tim Alford, director of the youth arm of the Elim Pentecostal Church, says: “Young people need spiritual parents more than spiritual programmes.”

Recruiting more volunteers to help to run programmes for Gen Z — whether groups for youth or for those in their twenties — is not enough (research carried out by Youth for Christ suggests that only two per cent say that youth clubs are a favourite place to spend time). What is needed is an ongoing commitment to relationships between the generations throughout the Church.

I have loved opportunities to walk alongside some amazing women in their twenties, as they settle into adult life and learn what they want that to look like. They are passionate, empathetic, and have grown up trying to navigate a connected, constantly changing, and uncertain world.

The American author Simon Sinek suggests that many young adults in Gen Z project a self-confidence that they do not feel. In a precarious job market, they navigate side-hustles on top of their day-jobs; their peers constantly present their apparently perfect lives and selves on social media, whatever the reality when the camera isn’t there.

Gen Z, Explained notes that, for this generation, “revealing a weakness is honest, authentic and appreciated”. In Faith Formation in a Secular Age (Baker Academic, 2017) (Features, 3 January 2020), Professor Andrew Root describes our current “age of authenticity”. Gen Z are looking for authenticity, honesty, and integrity in not only what we say, but what we do and how we say it.

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Making friends… listening… being spiritual parents… Loads of food for thought here in how older people in the church can best bless 15-25 year olds. And, by extension, others. https://t.co/5Nb9IGBJho

— Lucy Moore (@lucybmoore) March 17, 2023

Churches dot Linwood, a predominantly Black neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio. Yet drive down a quiet road past Holy Spirit Church of Columbus and Christ Centered Apostolic Church and you’ll find an unexpected sight: a brightly colored Buddhist shrine with ornate gold accents and a pointed roof typical of Laotian architecture.

Twin red dragons guard the pathway to the shine, surrounded by reflections ponds. In the same compound is the Watlao Buddhamamakaram Buddhist temple, built in 2009 by Laotian immigrants. Inside, monks in saffron robes pray in front of golden statues of Buddha.

This Buddhist temple is a visible marker of the changing landscape of the United States. Since the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act ended national origin quotas, the number of immigrants from Buddhist-background countries has grown drastically.

Today, Asians are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States, making up 7 percent of the US population, or 22 million people. Arriving to pursue higher education or job opportunities or to escape wars and turmoil, Asians will continue moving to the US, and demographers project the community will grow to 46 million by 2060.

This trajectory means US churches and Christians will more likely encounter neighbors who are Buddhist or from a Buddhist-influenced culture, as the religion significantly influences more than a billion people worldwide. Around 500 million people practice Buddhism, most of whom live on the Asian continent. China has the largest number of Buddhists (with about 245 million adherents), while seven countries have Buddhist majorities, most in Southeast Asia.

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#Buddhism Went Mainstream Decades Ago. US Churches Still Aren’t Ready. https://t.co/ANgpoQmi1I @CTmagazine introduces new biweekly series, explaining the basics and providing pointers for outreach pic.twitter.com/1Uf28xcXbN

— Jayson Casper (@jnjcasper) March 17, 2023

We are engaged in a massive national experiment, making all schoolchildren fit one behavioral mold; the results speak for themselves. Reading and math scores have not risen, but mindless acceptance of orthodoxy certainly has. The dream of certain educational reformers for centuries, it is only in the past couple decades that factory education has become reality, thanks to the power of Big Pharma. When students of the past did not fit, there was not that much even the most authoritarian teacher could do about it. Today, however, the choice is starker: Conform or be drugged. We used to make dystopian movies about it; now we make our children live it.

The medicine is the message. The nature of your discourse depends upon the popularity of your prescriptions. Once we have obedience in a tablet—a drug that makes students sit still and attend to whatever faddish nonsense their teacher may be spouting—society can be independent no longer. By making pharmaceuticals an integral part of the modern educational project, it is not simply the stimulant-taking students who become docile and obedient, but the unmedicated ones as well.

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If Ritalin did not exist, neither would ADHD; the treatment conjures the disease. https://t.co/Rl4h992jxz

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) March 17, 2023

A fleet of OF 50 Currachs (longboats) weaved its way toward the shore, where a young Roman Brit and his family walked. His name was Patricius, the 16-year-old son of a civil magistrate and tax collector. He had heard stories of Irish raiders who captured slaves and took them “to the ends of the world,” and as he studied the longboats, he no doubt began imagining the worst.

With no Roman army to protect them (Roman legions had long since deserted Britain to protect Rome from barbarian invasions), Patricius and his town were unprepared for attack. The Irish warriors, wearing helmets and armed with spears, descended on the pebbled beach. The braying war horns struck terror into Patricius’s heart, and he started to run toward town.

The warriors quickly demolished the village, and as Patricius darted among burning houses and screaming women, he was caught. The barbarians dragged him aboard a boat bound for the east coast of Ireland.

Patricius, better known as Patrick, is remembered today as the saint who drove the snakes out of Ireland, the teacher who used the shamrock to explain the Trinity, and the namesake of annual parades in New York and Boston. What is less well-known is that Patrick was a humble missionary (this saint regularly referred to himself as “a sinner”) of enormous courage. When he evangelized Ireland, he set in motion a series of events that impacted all of Europe. It all started when he was carried off into slavery around 430.

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Happy St Patrick's day: here's St Patrick asleep on a knoll.#StPatricksDay2023 ☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️
BL Royal 20 D VI; Wauchier de Denain, Lives of the Saints; 13th century; France, Central (Paris); f.213v @BLMedieval pic.twitter.com/TuQ2A2BJ1F

— Ennius (@red_loeb) March 17, 2023

Almighty God, who in thy providence didst choose thy servant Patrick to be the apostle of the Irish people, to bring those who were wandering in darkness and error to the true light and knowledge of thee: Grant us so to walk in that light, that we may come at last to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever.

#OTD 17 March: feast of St Patrick, patron saint of Ireland. pic.twitter.com/Z9NmJcqJvC

— Caroline Murray (@Prof_hedgehog) March 17, 2023

O Eternal God, who through thy Son our Lord hast promised a blessing upon those who hear thy Word and faithfully keep it: Open our ears, we humbly beseech thee, to hear what thou sayest, and enlighten our minds, that what we hear we may understand, and understanding may carry into good effect by thy bounteous prompting; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Another view of this morning's sunrise over Downtown Charleston! #chswx pic.twitter.com/4DZiHCsqYt

— Joey Sovine Live 5 (@JoeySovine) March 17, 2023

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

–Romans 6:1-11

A quiet Friday morning sunrise on Nauset Harbor.#capecod #orleans #StormHour pic.twitter.com/ZdX7sw7OOn

— Darius Aniunas (@dariusaniunas) March 17, 2023